Now is the time for us to start arguing about what way we’re going in this country.  One thing is certain – we have to do everything in our power to keep ourselves together.  This country has to continue to exist.  And almost everyone agrees, it has to change. 

The arguments about how it has to change have invaded our dinner table – For me, change for the worse took place the night Yizchak Rabin was murdered.  And what we need is to return to Rabin’s values.  

The Hope

Karen Alkalay-Gut

On the night Rabin died I dreamt I wandered the streets

homeless and lonely in a crowd of confusion, ricocheting

off relatives and friends barely regarded, while dogs of peace

ran with panthers and tigers all loose and all free. 

No one was working — everyone

out on the streets or in groups

sleeping in different houses, using

 interchangeably each others’ phones —

connecting  with wrong numbers

saying a few impotent words,

disconnecting indifferently

Unseasonable cold penetrated my clothes,

and uncoated  I sought shelter

in cloaks of the dead,

but found myself in other byways

before I could wrap myself in them

The river was solid and the earth

liquid under our feet — the worst

walked on water while the best

fell in the treacherous sands.

Nothing held  the dream together

and everything could fall apart

at any random moment

(published in Jewish Quarterly, Moznaim (Hebrew), and Poetry New York

Alkalay-Gut, K. (1995). The Hope. Jewish Quarterly, 42(4), 10. https://doi.org/10.1080/0449010X.1995.10706605